Maria Kilbride

Mariah Kilbride is a character created by Warren Ellis and rendered by Declan Shavely for the Injection series. As “the only authentic genius most people will ever meet”, Kilbride held the Townsend Brown Professorship at Lowlands University and is the founder of the Cross Cultural Contamination Unit. Kilbride also has an affiliation with the Cursus, a department within the covert agency known as Force Projection International (or FPI). Funded by the university, FPI, and the Ministry of Time, Kilbride recruited four other individuals (Brigid Roth, Robin Morel, Vivek Headland, and Simeon Winters) with different backgrounds to fulfill the CCCU’s mission of researching potential futures and extrapolating their effects on civilization. Their findings led to the conclusion that the most likely option for the future was one in which it would become a boring and mundane time devoid of inspiration, novelty, and innovation. After deliberation the CCCU decides to act to keep the future interesting. The means by which they decide to achieve this ambitious gambit is to create an artifical intelligence and introduce it, known as the Injection, into the Internet. Each of the CCCU members went their separate ways after the Injection was accomplished but things go awry before long as can happen with best laid plans and all.

WHile over dinner, it is Maria’s suggestion of introducing a strong artificial intelligence to bend the laws of physics that provides the spark to the aforementioned plan. Brigid casually offers up the alien machine learning system she developed as a tool as Vivek wonders aloud about making it properly investigative from an essentially neutral perspective. A bit of shamanic help from Robin Morel ensures the project’s success.

Before and up to the project’s culmination Mariah’s personality was bright, upbeat, and outgoing. Afterwards she appears sullen and morose and has been admitted to Sawlung Hospital for treatment of possibly insanity or a nervous breakdown. This was not her first admission. Despite the circumstances and her outward appearance, her mind is strong, resolute, and determined to regain her former standing. One trait is consistent throughout: her love of sandwiches. Kilbride is released from Sawlung after she agrees to work for Cursus, a department with the covert agency known as Force Projection International, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an archeologist and an “asset”. Her delving leads to an other wordly encounter which has been manipulated by the Injection.

Kilbride is included here because Warren Ellis wrote a scene in issue #8 in which he showed four of the five CCCU members in intimate situations. He paired Kilbride with Brigid Roth while sidestepping any particular sexual identity labels.